The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) identified the top occupations and skills of the world labor market for the year 2009. According to the government agency, nurses and caregivers are one of the occupations that are in-demand. Other occupations that makes it to the list are the following: household service workers, production and related workers, wiremen, electrical and related workers, welders, flame cutters and related workers, charworkers, cleaners and related workers, cooks and related workers, laborers, general workers and plumbers, pipefitters and related workers and seafarers.

The report also showed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the consistent top destination of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is also the country with the highest demand for Filipino nurses in 2009. This list of nurse’s destinations is followed by United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore,Kuwaitand the United Kingdom (UK).

For the last five years, the following countries are also included in the list: USA, Qatar,Taiwan, Ireland and Trinidad and Tobago. However, the current visa retrogression policy of USimmigration has limited the number of available slots for Filipino nurses in America.

For 2009, the top destinations for caretakers and caregivers are Taiwan, UKand Israel. However it is expected that the hiring of caregivers for Israel may slow down this year because of the ongoing legalization program.

In a separate report entitled, OFW Deployment Trend Outlook for 2010 and Beyond, the POEA said that as an effect of global economic crisis, the number of nurses and caregivers that Japan will hire for 2010 would be limited. They would only hire about 60 nurses and 101 caregivers this year.

Other countries that are projected to have an increased need for healthcare workers include USA, Canada. Australia, United Kingdom etc. America is badly in need of healthcare professionals, specifically nurses but deployment is limited by the current visa retrogression policy for EB3 visas. It is also reported that Australia needs to hire 31,000 foreign nurses.

Meanwhile,Canada’s workforce is ageing resulting in the need to hire more foreign

nurses and other healthcare workers. It is said that by 2011, there would be 78000 job vacancies for nurses and this number may grow to 113,000 by year 2018.                            

                                                                                                                                  The The same scenario can be seen in Europe specifically in United Kingdom which may have real shortage of nurses by 2012. Nurses with the following specializations are the most in-demand: operating theatre nurse, anaesthetic nurse, critical care nurses, scrub nurse, etc.